Chen.quest.ion

陳式太極拳競賽套路 56式 Chen Style traditional 56 form for tournament

Another 56 demo. It’s interesting to me because it’s so extreme. Very overt silk-reeling; stances so low (you’ll see!); yet with an “offhand” bloody fast fajing that I find oddly attractive. Good thing I didn’t see this clip when I was starting up with Chen, it would have messed with my head real bad!

Double Dragon Alliance Masters in China

Can’t resist this, though I need to stay focused on YCF form. But note the intricate hand movements; the height of the hands; the stepping. Previously I would have thought this form to be a bridge between Chen and Yang styles. This is Master Ren Gang (see my post “I Don’t End at My Skin”).

Fu Zhongwen (1903-1994) [2of2]

Credit where credit’s due: YouTube is awesome! The modern world hath its benefits.

Fu Zhongwen (1903-1994)

Three’s a charm! I hope these heirlooms will help me to join with the river already flowing. Rest in peace, Master Fu.

Fu Zhongwen Yang-style Form Part 1

Very, very interesting, both to study in itself, and to compare to the Wei Shuren clips I have seen.

Fu Zhong Wen performing Yang Style Taiji 1a

Wow! It’s my lucky day today, no doubt. This is like having a time machine. Fabulous.

Over at the Taijiquestion blog I posted a great article from Neigong.net (see blogroll links).  Tonight I read another article from the Neigong blog, and was blown away; it’s as remarkable as the other one, perhaps even more so.  What I’m talking about is: http://neigong.net/2007/01/11/how-to-train-your-spirit-and-energy-to-drive-the-body/.

The import and implications of what’s being talked about are so major, I won’t even try to comment on it here.  The title of the article, contained in the URL I’ve copied here, describes the subject matter.  This evening I was driving to a meeting of an organization I belong to.  High summer in Northern California, a country highway connecting two towns, trees small and large all around, farms, houses, and the vaulting sky above.  My mind was full of the Shen-related concepts and methods discussed in the article.  A catch-phrase came to mind (I’m pretty good at catchphrases): “I don’t end at my skin”.  Not the most elegant epigram perhaps, but to me it hits the nail right on the head.  So I’m going to try to carve this real-ization into my consciousness.  And hopefully, my taiji.

Normally this is the kind of stuff I would post over at Taijiquestion, my Mark II blog.  But I have a specific reason for putting it here instead.  In my previous post I asked a question, namely what is this “Holding Nothing” form that my teacher includes in his 108 Yang forms; why is it there; and what does it have to do with a martial art.  Amazingly, the answer appears to be contained in an article I stumbled across “by chance” less than 12 hours after I posted the question.  What I didn’t realize was how all-encompassing the answer could be.  But that’s my own slowness of comprehension at not grasping the idea of holding ”The Ten Thousand Things” in my hands.  What this means is that I think my teacher is wiser than I knew.

However I’d still welcome any readers’ comments on the posture, or any of these related matters!      

My last post was a YouTube video clip from Stone River Kung Fu, an old favorite website of mine that’s still going strong.  Nice chance to get a little Long Fist material on my blog.  Shaolin Kung Fu is what got my mind and spirit excited about the traditional Asian martial arts, when I was still young.  (Now with taijiquan I hope to be young again, ha-ha.)

But I have an ulterior motive for posting his clip here.  (Besides always being glad to spread the word about SRKF.)  At the beginning of the clip he performs a movement posture subtitled “Yin and Yang Palms Encircle the Ten Thousand Things”.  I know that there is a deep philosophical background to that phrase; those are things I’m learning about little by little.  But what interests me foremost is that in my Yang Taiji class in the session I just finished, we do this move twice (right hand top, left hand top) after Wuji and Begin Taiji.  It’s named “Hold Nothing” and that’s how my teacher has always described it.  We do it in a more rounded, taiji way…  just like holding a beach ball in front of the chest, then turning the ball over.  Then we do “petting a bird’s tail” to north and to east.

I was fascinated to see this “hold nothing” posture at the opening of a kung fu set.  My teacher doesn’t stress martial applications and to me, our “hold nothing” is the least martial thing we do in a Yang set otherwise filled with typical fighting moves.  I’d be grateful if anyone could shed some light on this “nothing” posture which undoubtedly “holds” a lot more meaning than I realized.     

Another thing that’s puzzled me is that I don’t think this bit appears in traditional Yang style taiji.  But my teacher has told us that the 108 form he teaches, has some alterations.  Probably in the future when I’m not a total newbie, I’ll find opportunity to ask him more about his form’s deeper side.

LBC_individual movements

“One Stance, One Punch” video clip from http://members.tripod.com/~Bullsnake/index.html

“Internal Masters” video excerpt

Interesting potpourri of taiji clips. The woman does (at 00:33 – 00:36) the move that my teacher calls “Circling Push Palm” that we do between the 2nd GST & the 2nd Single Whip.